Breakfast at a cool French bakery/cafe called Gavroche - named after the street kid in Les Miserables
- complete with a matching wifi password (look closely at the napkin holder)
Owned by a Frenchman who has trained local chefs, the pastries were just as good as in France. Elijah particularly liked his choco roll!
Beautiful photos on the wall taken in Bohol and Cebu by someone related to the owner.
Hamish enjoyed a sleep in and missed the cafe - which gives us a good excuse to go back there!
Back to the accommodation for an ad hoc chat about ethics by the pool, a lovely swim and some inside chill time.
Since we were heading into town for church tonight, we spent the afternoon in there as well. We weren't able to wander around St Joseph the worker Catholic cathedral as much as I would have liked, as we arrived part way through one of the 7 or 8 Sunday services, but we did get to see some of its magnificence and experience some of the service.
Then to the small but well presented National Museum of Bohol in the old Capitol building (1860), beautifully repaired after the 2013 earthquake.
Then to a very unique cafe experience, thanks to the Lonely Planet guide. The Garden Cafe is an Old West themed American diner with all sorts of memorabilia, and for some reason telephones at each table which you can use to phone through your order (not sure how that fits with the Old West theme?).
Even Starbucks coffee (albeit pod coffee with the ubiquitous powered milk!).
Its all quite a contrast to downtown Tagbilaran and there's no sign of a garden anywhere!
More significantly, the cafe is run by and for the benefit of local deaf people. The cook and wait staff are mostly deaf, and the menu even includes sign language to help you order - or you can simply write it down.
Who would have thought 'Garden Cafe', the Old West and deaf people would make such a great combination for a good cause?
Then some 'window shopping' at the mall, where the department store even includes musical instruments, sound desks and karaoke machines. More interestingly, there's an Adoration Room, where, thanks to the priest's turning of bread and wine into Jesus' body and blood, you are 'most welcome to visit our Lord Jesus' and 'pray before the (his) true presence.'
Just down the road you can take part in 'the holy sacrifice of the Latin mass' (didn't Vatican 2 reject using Latin in favour of local languages back in the 60s?).
As we wandered around vainly looking for somewhere for dinner down near the waterfront, we came across this warning ...
Needless to say we stopped holding hands.
Finally we went to the evening English service at the church that runs the Compassion project we visited. There were about 100 of God's people, most of them under 30. The Pastor asked the three of us to stand and warmly welcomed us as partners to their work amongst the sponsored children.
Some things were very much the same as our church:
- a Bible reading and Bible talk
- songs about our wonderful God, with words projected on a screen
- an opportunity to confess our sins together
- remembering Jesus' death with the symbols that Jesus gave us to use - bread and wine
- and of course, almost no one sat in the first 7 rows
But some things were different:
- the ministers and the choir wore robes
- all the men wore pants
- almost all the music was played by an organ and was written before 1980
- the congregation sang responses to the words of the leaders
- we sang a birthday and a wedding anniversary song for all those celebrating this week
- we greeted one another whilst we sang a song about unity
Some of these things seemed strange to us for a service intended for young people, but no doubt we don't know Filipino culture well enough.
Most of all we felt glad to have gathered with our brothers and sisters in Christ, especially with a church with whom we are partnering in 'releasing children from poverty in Jesus' name.' And given what we have seen of the great contrast between poverty and wealth here, and given that we are looking forward to returning to the privileges of living in Australia, the Bible teaching from Philippians 4:9-12 was a timely reminder for all of us about the secret of contentment - not having enough money but valuing knowing Jesus above everything else.
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